Opposition requests license for 100,000 strong rally in Moscow

The opposition coalition Solidarity has submitted a request for a major march against the authorities’ anti-crisis measures on March 1. Moscow City Hall is yet to grant approval for the rally.

The news about the application was reported by one of
Solidarity’s key activists, Sergey Davidis. He told Interfax the
event would be named simply ‘Spring’ and the maximum turnout is
estimated at 100,000. The main objective of the march is to
express discontent with the anti-crisis program of the
authorities, Davidis elaborated.

The head of Moscow’s directorate for regional security, Aleksey
Mayorov, told reporters on Monday that various political
movements had submitted six different applications for mass
rallies on March 1 and added that it was early to talk about any
particular plans. According to Russian law, civil servants have
three days to officially permit or ban the rally.

On Sunday one of the main figures behind the planned rally – the
leader of the Party of Progress Aleksey Navalny – was detained
for promoting the march.

Navalny and another anti-corruption activist – Aleksey Lyaskin -
were apprehended on Sunday evening in the Moscow Metro and
released at about midnight after spending six hours in a police
station, TASS reported quoting the Moscow press service of the
Interior Ministry. Police said that the detained were violating
public order.

Lyaskin tweeted that law enforcers registered them both and asked
to appear in the station on the next day in order to complete all
forms. Navalny also posted a tweet about the accident, calling it
“ridiculous and illegal” and adding a photo of himself
at a Metro station with uniformed officers in the background.

In addition to allegedly breaching the public order Navalny
violated the conditions of the house arrest he currently must
remain under.

In late December, Aleksey Navalny and his brother Oleg were
convicted of large-scale embezzlement and received sentences –
suspended for Aleksey and incarcerated for Oleg, who was a key
suspect in the case. However, the sentence has not yet come into
full force which means that the prevention measure for Aleksey
cannot be changed and he should remain under house arrest.

Navalny has protested about this situation by walking out of his
apartment and cutting off the special surveillance device. Each
time he was detained and returned home without any additional
remands.